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[Culise]

President Pedro Castillo just attempted to overthrow the Peruvian government by illegally dissolving Congress and imposing a national curfew, along with trying to diddle the prosecutor's office on the side to disrupt their corruption investigations against him.  This barely lasted two hours before the resignation of most of his cabinet, and declarations of protest from Congress, the constitutional court, and the military, culminating in his own arrest and replacement by the vice president.

The Guardian news story

[hector13]

I guess that’s one problem with democracy, essentially it being a popularity contest, and people winning it confusing winning with being popular as opposed to just being the least unpopular, combined with the Trumpian idea that if you put someone in a powerful position they are expected to follow you blindly.

I have to say I respect the audacity of the move though, other than it being unbelievably short-sighted in that the things that happened afterward were pretty obvious consequences of it.

[LordBaal]

I work with some people from Peru and Castillo is kinda unloved by all now (before all that). Peru's pass time is kicking unpopular and unlawful presidents out of the chair. They have like 5 under their belts now.

[ChairmanPoo]

I saw an interview of Castillo shortly before he was elected and he came across to me as a complete moron with no idea of what he was talking about. He didn't even know the proper meaning of the words

[LordBaal]

He is. And his attempt at staying in power was enough demonstration of it.

[da_nang]

Bolsonaro supporters are pulling a stupider J6 and are storming the Brazilian Congress.

The Brazilian Congress is not in recess today and supposedly empty.

[ChairmanPoo]

If anything its less stupid and scarier than 6J. They have a better chance of disrupting politics due to Brazil's instability (ie: what if the goverment calls down the army to kick them out and the army  takes over?

[scriver]

America, you are a mimetic hazard

[JoshuaFH]

Keter class SCP: United States of America.

[Loud Whispers]

Keter class SCP: United States of America.

I live in a constant state of America

[Red Diamond]

President Pedro Castillo just attempted to overthrow the Peruvian government by illegally dissolving Congress and imposing a national curfew, along with trying to diddle the prosecutor's office on the side to disrupt their corruption investigations against him.  This barely lasted two hours before the resignation of most of his cabinet, and declarations of protest from Congress, the constitutional court, and the military, culminating in his own arrest and replacement by the vice president.

The Guardian news story

Yes, he tried (and failed) to prevent his own overthrow.  The idea that law has anything to do with this is just pure DELUSION.  However he pissed basically everybody off by being a backstabber and throwing everybody overboard to save his own skin so it didn't work. 

[Duuvian]

Well would you look at that

https://theintercept.com/2023/01/18/genaro-garcia-luna-trial/

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

His roles in security brought García Luna into close contact with his U.S. counterparts. Robert Mueller, Eric Holder, Hillary Clinton, and others were all on his meeting agenda. As The Intercept previously reported, U.S. State Department cables called García Luna a “trusted liaison, partner and friend of the FBI.” Another cable outlines a meeting between John Brennan, who would later become director of the CIA, and García Luna: “Garcia Luna expressed his appreciation for President Calderon’s undivided commitment to fighting organized crime and his satisfaction with U.S.-Mexican cooperation, suggesting if both sides held firm we would see a reduction in violence.”

“Having someone like García Luna is extraordinarily beneficial, and they” — U.S. officials — “were not going to stop having the benefit of that huge open door just because the guy was most likely taking money, or extorting money, out of traffickers and committing all kinds of crimes,” said Oswaldo Zavala, a journalist and professor at the City University of New York.

Prosecutors have asked the court to reject evidence “depicting meetings between him and senior U.S. government officials.” They’ve also asked that there be no mention of Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, the former Mexican secretary of national defense who was arrested by the U.S. in 2019 but whose charges were later dropped in a diplomatic scandal that shook the U.S.-Mexico security relationship.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

With his drug war machinations, close relationships with top officials from both sides of the border, and contacts with a raft of drug cartel operatives, García Luna left in his wake a host of potential witnesses against him. Many are themselves narcos who were arrested and turned on the cartels, such as Edgar “La Barbie” Valdez Villarreal, who wrote in a 2012 public letter that García Luna had taken bribes.

    “If he becomes the scapegoat for everything wrong with Mexico’s system and the rise of organized crime in Mexico, then they’re doing it wrong.”

According to previously sealed sentencing records, first reported by Aristegui Noticias and reviewed by The Intercept, between 2008 and 2010, La Barbie, who found Christianity after his arrest, fed information to the DEA, the FBI, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as “possibly communications with intelligence services in the United States.” Little is known of what La Barbie fed U.S. officials. His contact with the American agencies suggests the U.S. government may have known of the allegations against García Luna a decade before his indictment.

“This is all guesswork,” said Isacson, of the Washington Office on Latin America. “I suspect that the DEA may have still found him useful for some things. You have several cartels in Mexico and some of them are clearly not working with García Luna — a sort of ‘enemy of my enemy’ situation.”

Looks pretty bad. I'll note the Intercept has been deemed by some a questionable source (articles on a specific subject that seemed influenced$, though IIRC it may have only been one writer) a few times recently and generally is quite lefty, if such a site burns your eyeballs.  I look at it because it seems to be nearly entirely outside reuter's/ap repostings and has articles I won't see on three different sites as I trundle from news site to news site.

[Loud Whispers]

>help man traffick drugs into USA to stop men trafficking drugs into USA
Bravo

[martinuzz]

In Surinam, political parties are trying to reform the election laws, because the current laws are deemed discriminatory.
One part of the plan, brought forward by the VHP party, will be strongly opposed by president Brunswijk's party.
The VHP wants that elected officials can have no criminal convictions, whether it be in Surinam, or somewhere abroad.

This would mean that president Brunswijk can no longer be elected, nor can former president Bouterse.
Both have been convicted in absentia in the Netherlands for smuggling (huge amounts of) cocaine.

[Maximum Spin]

In Surinam, political parties are trying to reform the election laws, because the current laws are deemed discriminatory.
One part of the plan, brought forward by the VHP party, will be strongly opposed by president Brunswijk's party.
The VHP wants that elected officials can have no criminal convictions, whether it be in Surinam, or somewhere abroad.

This would mean that president Brunswijk can no longer be elected, nor can former president Bouterse.
Both have been convicted in absentia in the Netherlands for smuggling (huge amounts of) cocaine.

That's pretty flawed, though. In such an absolute form, it means that, eg, Russia could disqualify candidates in Suriname at will by conducting show trials in absentia. Better to limit it to convictions which are valid in Suriname, but establish parity with trusted partner countries, which would certainly include Holland.